Q: The before and after photos at your X-Rep site are pretty unbelievable. I mean, come on, four weeks to get those changes? You must’ve either lied about the time it took or manipulated the photos. You should be ashamed of yourselves. There’s too much of that deceptive crap in the Internet.

A: Ashamed? Actually, we’re very proud. Those photos are 100 percent authentic and accurate—no photo alterations, no steroids, and they were taken about four weeks apart. (The key technique that made it happen and a step-by-step how-to is coming up.)

One thing to consider is that those afters were taken under studio lighting, which is more dramatic (Steve even got the blue-light special); however, our results were more dramatic as well. We both made faster progress than we ever had in previous years, which brings up another important point...

We were regaining conditioning. We get in ripped shape every year, usually for a photo shoot; however, that X-Rep year our results happened much faster—with less training—and our size and muscularity rocketed to a whole new level. X-Rep partials were the reason.

Since that time we’ve found a lot of research to verify their effectiveness. For example, Jacob Wilson, BSc., MSc. CSCS, one of the top bodybuilding researchers around today, has noted, “Partial-range reps in the lower range of a muscle [a.k.a. X Reps], can actually add sarcomeres to a muscle fiber, which would fill out the area of a muscle where it is inserted.” Interesting, and that makes a lot of sense...

We believe that may be one reason we made such spectacular progress when we integrated X-Rep partials at the end of some of our sets—adding sarcomeres to muscle fibers creates much more muscle size and detail. You can read about how we first started using X Reps at our homepage—the developmental process was a domino effect thanks to information from a number of training experts. In fact, when we started using X Reps we had no intention of writing an e-book—it was just another of our ongoing training experiments. But after our quick progress, we decided to write The Ultimate Mass Workout, which chronicles our development of X Reps, the research behind them and the complete program we used during that one-month transformation (it also has a lot of before and after photos of us taken under the same lighting). Here’s how to do X Reps, from page 18 of UMW...

Step 1: Perform a regular full-range (dynamic) set to positive failure, which should occur at rep nine or 10 on most exercises.

Step 2: Move the bar, machine lever arm, dumbbells or foot plate into the appropriate position for X Reps, with help from your training partner if necessary. (Each exercise has a point along its stroke that’s optimal for target-muscle fiber recruitment; for example, just above the lowest point of an incline press where there is elongation in the pectorals and maximum-force potential.)

Step 3: Do four to six up-and-down pulses in the X-Rep position. Those pulses should be in a range of four to eight inches, relatively short strokes. You should feel the target muscle screaming for relief, but grit your teeth and take that as a sign of extreme growth stimulation. [You may need partner assistance on some exercises.]

Step 4: Terminate the set when you can no longer pulse with the resistance. Take a few deep breaths, stretch and contract the target muscle and feel the blood rushing in. You’ll realize that you’ve done more to trigger growth with that one X-Rep set than most trainees get with three to four conventional sets.

We are fascinated with building muscle quickly without spending a lot of time in the gym—efficiency of effort. So the very next year, we continued to research muscle hypertrophy and developed a number of X-hybrid techniques, such as Double-X Overload and X Fade, in an attempt to accelerate our gains. Results? We added another 10 pounds of muscle. We were ecstatic because we have to train on our lunch break; we don’t have a lot of time to spend in the gym—efficient muscle building is a top priority, and we’ve found a number of ways to make that happen.

Most of what we’ve found works big time, and we’re very proud of our techniques and results—not ashamed in the least. [Note: For X-hybrid techniques and the program we used that second year after our X-Rep transformation, see the Beyond X-Rep Muscle Building e-book.]

Q: The day after I do pullovers, the stretch move for my lats, my triceps are sore. Am I doing them wrong?

A: No, pullovers do work the long head of the triceps. When you pull the dumbbells from back over your head to over our face with your arms almost straight, you activate the long heads.

That’s one reason we train triceps on lat day. We use the following split:

Workout 1: chest, lats, triceps, abs
Workout 2: quads, hamstrings, calves, lower back
Workout 3: delts, midback, biceps, forearms

We always gravitate to that split, and, coincidentally, it’s the exact split we used during our X-Rep transformation [see our X-Rep Mass-Detail Workout on pages 78-80 of the Ultimate Mass Workout e-book].

Pullovers are a great transition from lats to triceps—after lats, tri’s are already somewhat warmed up from pullovers. If you use a different split and work triceps on a different day than lats, your triceps’ long head could be getting trained too often. That may not affect some trainees, but it’s something to consider if you’re having trouble building triceps mass—the long head is the meatiest section of the triceps muscle, so you don’t want to derail its growth by overtraining it.

Till next time, train hard!

—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com

Note: You can get the Ultimate Mass Workout e-book (the original X-Rep manual) with the Beyond X-Rep Muscle Building e-book for at a special low combo price. Get it at the X-Shop.